Meeting Story Prep

For my meeting story, I plan to attend the Kingsport Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting on Tuesday March 3. This meeting will be much like the Johnson City Board of Commissioners meeting I attended last week.

I believe beat journalism does not allow for as much variety in my writing as I would like. Just go online and try to find local events and/or meetings that involve political law and/or courthouses and hearings. I bet you will not find much besides these city board meetings that I have been attending.

Do not get me wrong, going to these meetings is quite interesting and provides easily accessible information on these meetings to the public. However, for assignments based solely on meetings and events, it is hard to find variety in your beat. That is why I am trying to keep things as interesting as possible by going to a meeting in a different city and talking to new people.

I have not yet attended this meeting as of writing this blog post. However, as far as preparing for this meeting goes, I have found and downloaded the agenda for the meeting and have begun to prepare notes for the meeting. I have also emailed the mayor of Kingsport, Tennessee. He has agreed to do an interview with me before the meeting and answer any questions I have.

Since the beginning of this class I believe my preparation style has changed thoroughly. Before this class I would have just showed up to the meeting writing down notes as they happened and would hope to interview anyone who was there. Now, I find myself downloading agendas, preparing my notes, and setting up interviews in advanced.

One thing I still struggle with is the actual interviews themselves. I always write down my questions beforehand and always record the audio of the interview (with the interviewee’s permission, of course). However, I find it hard to pick out questions that the answers provide good information while also being good quotes. Also, I find myself too nervous to sometimes ask for elaboration.

All in all, I have found that through the assignments I have been doing in the class, I am slowly becoming a better reporter. I have also learned that while beat journalism provides us with quick, reliable information in a specific field, it is also sometimes too specific, limiting the kinds of stories you can write. But I think I will refine my beat into something I love and will become a better reporter for it.